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RAM usage by individual program

Is there a simple, or even reasonably simple, way to determine the RAM usage by an individual program? I did a subject search before posting and one member had a RAM problem with PGP 7.1.1, anyway he suspected that was the RAM problem. Recently on boot my W98 seems to hang on the opening tone for several warbling seconds, then the computer has locked-up much more frequently and with fewer resources open than it used to. I have 384Meg of RAM and 10-gig free on an 11-gig HD, and a 550 Celeron. No virtual drives, just physical C: Right now, with only my browser, AV program and Firewall going, I'm down to 54% resources. I hate to start deleting programs from the start menu and reboot after each one, but that's the only way I know to locate the problem.

Norton

Try downloading Norton Utilities. If my memory is not failing me, Norton Utilities have a little program call System Information that allow you to see exactly how much ram program your program use. But I'm pretty sure their other program out there that do the same thing. Check big library like www.Zdnet.com or www.Tucows.com

Re: Norton

Originally posted by SDK Try downloading Norton Utilities. If my memory is not failing me, Norton Utilities have a little program call System Information that allow you to see exactly how much ram program your program use. But I'm pretty sure their other program out there that do the same thing. Check big library like www.Zdnet.com or www.Tucows.com

No....absolutely not! Peter Norton has a real problem with trying to tie in with an OS that Billy boy will not give him the source code to. Your original idea may be time consuming old man but you will find out what you need to know. Just type in "msconfig" at the run menu and go thru them one by one. Half of the shareware stuff you download tries to run at startup..clear some of that crap out. Do not load norton utilities on though..they are pure crap and give you misleading information

Norton... Crashguard... makes crashes worse. Seriously. I don't trust Norton in terms of running it constantly. Spot-uses of Norton utilities are okay, but I really don't trust them in terms of long-term stability.

I would like to really recommend Another Task Manager. The next version of it is shareware, but 2.2 is freeware, and it works great. It lets you view all running processes on a win9x machine, kill and terminate them indescriminately, view memory allocation, their processing load, modules, window status, etc.

For memory, select the program in the main window, and click the "Memory info" button under the "Process" tab.

ram and resources are unrelated issues...win98 is a steaming POS when it comes to "resources" cause its a crippled stepchild of an 8bit OS...

deleting progs isn't likely gonna help...

even with 1 gig of ram you can still run out of resources in win98...

i used to run coldfusion studio in win98...would kill 45-60% of resources just loadin the thing..(they did fix it with some patches...so it only killed 35-40%)..i know eudora takes about 20%...if i recall..sysmon.exe is what you want for monitoring resources (been a while since 98 for me so check online help)

Originally posted by zigar ram and resources are unrelated issues...win98 is a steaming POS when it comes to "resources" cause its a crippled stepchild of an 8bit OS...

deleting progs isn't likely gonna help...

You are right in a certain sense... however I've been doing tech support for a long time. I have found that badly written programs do sometimes hog resources. I used to work for Dell. They used to load a ton og crap in the start menu. When the customer got thier system and booted they got a resources low error message. The ole msconfig trick would clear it right up.

absolutely agree...(ie..coldfusion...and that sucker would leak resources until complete system halt...used to reboot ...up to ten times a day....)

point was basically that while it's true that crappy coding is a problem...a better os can handle the problem much better...in 2k and xp...the progs (good coded and bad coded ones) get their own happy little piece of resource real estate...their not sharing with anyone...so if they misbehave...you can kill em with task manager without bringing the whole system down...

and if memory serves, win9x (and prob ME too) all have a little playground of 128k (yes that's K) of resources to play in...in two 64K areas....to store fonts, bitmaps, drop-down menu lists and other on-screen stuff...

I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and weird." - Abe Simpson

Thanks...

Thanks all... Some good info you posted for the question. I deleted and replaced the 2000 version of Norton's programs some time ago, they sit on the shelf. I use the commercial versions of Panda AV and ZAPro for firewall, neither of which are using a percent of any resources. I use a text editor instead of WYSIWYG's for my html, they (3 expensive ones) are sitting on the shelf also. I have always understood that "fonts" do not count until they are activated; if you are not using or viewing any of the complicated fonts they are not called up. I noticed that IE6 loads just as fast as NS6 although NS has very few fonts. I don't use wallpaper or other bells & whistles, nor Outlook Express or anything else until I actually use it. IE6 was running like a gazelle until just lately. I shut off everything with 'Real' in its name, and my firewall blocks everything that I'm not using. I downloaded Opera, and will try it. Maybe IE6 is getting constipated with all the overhead I've hung on it.
Thanks Terr for the ATM program, it is quite an interesting monitor! I'm not quite sure how to interpret the memory notations, whether they are allocated or actually used, but I'll keep on trying. None of them seem too significant though.
Thanks sOnIc for the run-msinfo32, that is a new one for me and it's quite interesting.
Best Regards to all.

Crashguard

Totally agree with you Terr and antihaxor, Norton Crashguard realy suck bad but other Norton Programs are mostly good. But the program under Utilies call System Information is able to check how much ram all application use.

Msconfig is also a good idea to clean all unwant programs at the startup.